|
Books > Law > Laws of other jurisdictions & general law > Social law > Public health & safety law
|
Buy Now
Food Safety and the WTO - The Interplay of Culture, Science and Technology (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R4,410
Discovery Miles 44 100
|
|
|
Food Safety and the WTO - The Interplay of Culture, Science and Technology (Hardcover)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
|
Today's international trade regime explicitly rejects cultural
perceptions of what is safe to eat, overturning millennia of
tradition. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on the
Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) enshrines
"science" as the arbiter in resolving disputes involving this vital
human need. This mandate, however, is under attack from many
quarters. Critics cite environmental and ethical concerns,
unpredictably changing technology, taste, food preferences, local
culture, adequacy of governmental implementation of WTO standards,
and the reliability of scientific opinion. A basic conflict has
crystallized: food as culture versus food as commerce. The WTO/SPS
approach is increasingly challenged for its balance in favour of
economic considerations, and for its visible undermining of unique
cultural identities. This book explores the relationship between
the SPS Agreement, food traditions, science, and technology. It
deliberately confronts those trade experts who refuse to allow
other social sciences to influence their economics-based trade
theory. The author investigates the local perception of food and
food safety from the anthropological and historical points of view,
the evolution of food production technologies, and the medicinal,
proscriptive (taboo) and security aspects of food that continue to
prevail in nearly all cultures today. She succeeds in demonstrating
that, no matter how strong the faith in science and economics, it
is unwise to flagrantly dismiss the deeply rooted beliefs of
billions of people, a huge majority of the world's population. The
beef hormones case; the remaining sovereignty related to food
safety measures; the increasing significance of "appropriate levels
of protection" and "the precautionary principle"; the redefinition
of "food hazard" to include production processes as well as food
itself; genetically modified seeds and food products; the concept
of "risk" in the science-based context of the Codex Alimentarius -
these are among the issues and topics covered in depth. The author
concludes that, although quick "legal" resolutions of trade
disputes about what people should or should not eat might provide a
"win" for open trade, support for the entire structure and
rationale of the WTO is undermined unless (at the least) some
flexibility of interpretation is introduced into the WTO Dispute
Resolution System in order to recognize the weight and validity of
public opinion.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
